News & Updates from Voyage Manager

Voyage Manager Ltd. has partnered with global satellite communications company, Applied Satellite Technology Ltd (AST Ltd), in order to provide Voyage Manager with access to Iridium as well as other major satellite communication platforms.

With its move into device and location tracking, Voyage Manager has partnered with Applied Satellite Technology Ltd (AST) as its supplier of Iridium based technologies and services. Using Iridium based tracking devices Voyage Manager can provide customers and travellers with GPS tracking in any location in the world, from the middle of the Sahara desert to the remote jungles of Asia and South America.

The integration of Iridium based device tracking with the Voyage Manager services enables VM Travel Tracker to automatically track travellers without any user interaction, making VM Travel Tracker the first completely automated travel tracker on the market.

VM Locate, Voyage Manager’s device tracking service uses the Iridium based tracking as a key component in its device tracking suite that includes mobile phone tracking and GSM/GPRS based device tracking.

Voyage Manager Ltd. has teamed up with the operator of the world’s furthest-reaching communications network, Iridium Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: IRDM), to enable travellers and other customers with its GPS tracking service, “VM Travel Tracker,” to have vital, global coverage anywhere on Earth, from pole-to-pole, from the middle of the Sahara desert to the remote jungles of Asia and South America.

With its move into device and location tracking, Voyage Manager offers Iridium®-based tracking devices designed and built through the Iridium partner ecosystem. Voyage Manager integrates VM Travel Tracker with these Iridium-based devices to automatically track travellers without any user interaction, making VM Travel Tracker the only completely automated travel tracking systems on the market.

Some Iridium-based tracking devices incorporate emergency buttons which can be activated in the case of an emergency. When travellers activate these two-way emergency services, Voyage Manager’s emergency response is automatically activated, which includes notifying the traveller’s emergency response contacts.

“This partnership enables Voyage Manager to provide unparalleled services to its global clients, ensuring that travellers are safe anywhere in the world” said John Scott, CEO of Voyage Manager.

“Iridium is proud to be the only global catalyst for such innovative partner services,” said Greg Ewert, executive vice president, global channel distribution and business development, Iridium. “These solutions are critical for making travel safer, more efficient and less of a remote experience for people and assets needing to stay in touch with home base.”

Using cloud based voice service Twilio, Voyage Manager has become the first travel monitoring and tracking service to incorporate automated speech technology into its solutions.

Voyage Manager has pushed travel tracking to a new level with the integration of the VM suite with Twilio’s cloud based telephony services. With the new features Voyage Manager can automatically call travellers and key support personnel in order to notify them of any events, incidents or problems. The calls can also be used to request travel status updates from travellers, removing the need for travellers to proactively contact Voyage Manager.

As part of the new voice services Voyage Manager has also enabled an automated dial-in service, where travellers and personnel can call in; to confirm arrival, check into the system or declare an emergency.

Unlike SMS and email based communication voice is real time, ensuring that those being called have the most current information available. Where time is critical and every second counts, this can be a life saver.

Travel technology specialist Voyage Manager has teamed up with real time location company Omnisense in a joint venture to provide state of the art solutions for ensuring the safety of passengers and crew at sea.

In this 100th anniversary year of the Titanic, the recent Costa Concordia disaster illustrates that despite the many improvements in maritime safety in the intervening century, avoidable deaths continue to haunt us. In such situations, the speed of the rescue process has proven to be a key determinant of survivability, but this is hampered by a total lack of information about passenger and crew locations, necessitating a slow and painstaking room by room search of the vessel.

With this in mind, Cambridge based Voyage Manager and Omnisense have teamed up to develop the world's most advanced system for locating passengers and crew in real time, aimed at improving response times in the case of an emergency and reducing the chance of fatalities.

The system delivers an easy to use, easy to manage method for tracking the location of people as they move about a ship, one which places no additional demands on its users. This is essential as it's by achieving near-100% usage rates that the value of the system will be maximised in the case of an incident.

“The technology developed through this partnership will not only benefit passenger ships, but also cargo and production vessels, as well as on-shore and off-shore oil installations“ says John Scott, CEO of Voyage Manager.

“Our systems for sensing position and behaviour are uniquely flexible and easy to deploy, providing added assurance in the ability to account for everyone on board in the case of an incident. We are delighted to be working with Voyage Manager. ” says Andy Thurman, CEO of Omnisense.

Travellers can now have their Facebook profiles automatically updated with their latest Voyage Manager travel status updates.

Voyage Manager has made a significant step into the world of social media with the integration of the VM Travel Tracking Suite with the world’s largest social network, Facebook. The Facebook integration allows travellers to automatically post their travel status updates on Facebook, allowing friends and family to easily follow the progress of their trips. Through automation the traveller does not have to perform any extra actions in order for their status to be published on Facebook, making the process effortless.

Voyage Manager recommends that clients using this feature do so with care as publishing data onto Facebook can compromise security. Clients can enable or disable the Facebook integration across the company, and each individual traveller can also choose whether or not to publish their data on the social network. For security reasons the Facebook integration is switched off by default, requiring the client to enable the feature.

Voyage Manager has just added a new independent device tracking application to its already comprehensive list of features making it the most complete and all-encompassing travel Management solution on the market.

In addition to the organisational, monetary, and safety benefits that Voyage Manager already provides, the new device tracking application has made the system even more automated and user friendly. Incorporating HLR Lookup, Device Manager can now automatically tell which country or region a phone is in; eliminating the need for the traveller’s direct input.

Fully customisable, just like the rest of the Voyage Manager system, this new feature helps to increase the data available whilst minimising the individual’s need for direct interaction with the system.

By adding its latest feature – a device tracking system - Voyage Manager has once again moved the world of travel management forward; becoming the only company who manages every step of the journey from itinerary management, to device tracking, to comprehensive data analysis tools within one product.

The new device tracking application can be used independently or as a part of a full installation of Voyage Manager, and like Voyage Manager is completely customisable. Incorporating HLR Lookup, Device Manager can now automatically tell which country or region a phone is in: eliminating the need for the traveller’s direct input and making the system even more automated and user friendly – increasing the data available whilst minimising the individual’s need for direct interaction with the system.

Adding a device tracker to its already comprehensive list of features makes Voyage Manger the most complete and all-encompassing travel management solution on the market and shows the drive towards innovation that has been at the heart of Voyage Manger since its inception.

But while other companies have stopped short, Voyage Manager is driven to push the boundaries of travel management and will continue to create new features and benefits. Plans are already in progress for the inclusion of new travel tracking technologies such as phone tracking using GPS, satellite device tracking and dedicated device tracking into the Voyage Manager framework; proving that Voyage Manager will continue to go above and beyond for its customers.

Flight Manager is the latest addition to the ever expanding functionality of Voyage Manager’s travel management, monitoring and tracking solution.

Flight Manager works as an independent application for managing and monitoring commercial flights and can be used as an individual tool or as a part of the whole Voyage Manager package.

The application provides extensive flight lookup and monitoring functionality, as well as airline and airport lookup features. When used in conjunction with the rest of the Voyage Manager suite, Flight Manager becomes an invaluable tool, providing detailed information about travellers and their flights.

Voyage Manager Ltd, a leading travel management company, joins enterprises around the world, such as The NY Times and NASDAQ, as it switches to cloud based services.

Being based in the cloud gives Voyage Manager the scalability necessary for continued growth and adds further reliability to the already comprehensive service that Voyage Manager provides.

Working with organisations of any size, Voyage Manager is a fully automated, web based service which manages company travel, tracks trips as they progress, notifies important people of safe arrival and informs the traveller and company of any problems along the way.

As an innovator in the development of travel management technology, Voyage Manager is very pleased to be able to provide an even more reliable and customisable service for their clients through the cloud.

Voyage Manager Ltd. and Fugro Geoteam AS today announced a 6 month pilot whereby Voyage Manager will supply Fugro Geoteam AS with their travel management, travel security and travel monitoring service. The deal gives Fugro Geoteam AS access to the most advanced and automated travel management solution available on the market.

"This deal will give Fugro Geoteam AS a fantastic tool for managing and monitoring their employee travel. Voyage Manager will allow Fugro Geoteam AS to accurately know where their staff are, and provide immediate alerts when problems occur. We hope Fugro Geoteam AS will benefit greatly from the advantages Voyage Manager will give them." says John Scott, CEO of Voyage Manager Ltd.

"We expect Voyage Manager to provide us with improved follow-up of our employees while travelling on behalf of the company, and allow us to expand even further on our duty-of-care and HSE responsibilities" says Øyvind Hennum of Fugro Geoteam AS.